The evolution of event technology has elevated our profession to the next level enabling organizers to concentrate their efforts on developing goal-driven, emotional and experiential events, rather than on data management and other low-value tasks. Combine the adoption of innovative technologies with a strategic meeting management (SMM) framework; organizations are poised to increase efficiency, transparency, and ultimate control over their enterprise-wide event activities. Event-tech industry leaders such as Cvent and etouches have embraced the notion of developing a comprehensive platform to support the SMM requirements and the modernization of the event lifecycle. But, what about the individual organizer’s ability to manage tactical logistical tasks, deadlines, vendors, and budgets successfully for simultaneous events? Today’s organizations are using various versions of Microsoft Office solutions including Word, Excel and Access to capture planning tasks resulting in a lack of integration and increased content redundancy.

Event Project Management Solutions
In order for high-performing teams to be successful, there are two processes that need to happen concurrently: an SMM – oriented management of the strategic life cycle of an event, and secondly, a project management system that allows event organizers to work at an individual level, handling logistical tasks and deadlines productively, and leading onsite execution with real-time data. Across most organizations today, cross-functional team leaders are relying on the event organizer to provide progress updates based on subjective information, lacking a true lens into the actual progress of the project planning cycle. There are project management elements that exist in several Registration and SMM solutions; however, none that I have found have a complete event project management tool kit to support optimum event planning coordination at the organizer “tactical” level, as well as a “holistic” management dashboard.

Recently, I have had the opportunity to research general project management solutions which all have the fundamental requirements to successfully manage a project; however, these general solutions lack the event-specific needs from an organizer’s ultimate “wish list.” I also recognized that the project management solution could live independently from an existing SMM / Registration solution since the two have completely different purposes.

Based on my research, one company has risen to the top; delivering on the “wish list” requirements of delivering a simplified, cloud-based project management tool kit and management dashboard. Eventuosity, a company established in 2014 by Justin Panzer, a 20-year-plus event and marketing professional, recognized the enormity of the event organizer’s responsibility to be an exceptional project manager, communicator, and effective implementer which required a robust yet simplified solution. Corbin Ball, Event and Meeting Consultant, was spot on when he evaluated Eventuosity and said, “end-to-end event project management is an under-served area of our industry. It’s good to see the development of well-conceived tools such as Eventuosity, addressing this need with web and mobile applications.”

Eventuosity provides event and meeting professionals with:
• The tools to create end-to-end event projects from a template, previous event, or from scratch including team members, tasks, deadlines, all run-of-show details, and important performance metrics.
• Real-time collaboration with colleagues, staff, management, suppliers and other stakeholders; all with permission-based access controlled by the organizer.
• An open API strategy allowing integration with Outlook, Google, Salesforce, and other key marketing and event technology solutions.
• A cloud-based environment allowing access from the office, home or on the road.

For those of you that have been searching for a true event-centric project management platform that will allow you to replace a patchwork “system” of disconnected applications (Outlook, Excel, Basecamp/Asana/Trello, Dropbox, Google Drive), I’d recommend taking a look at Eventuosity.